The annual Mariinsky ballet festival will
run for the fifteenth time from 13 – 22 March 2015. In line with tradition
the festival will open with a premiere. The first ballet premiere of
the season will be an evening of one-act ballets choreographed by Anton
Pimonov – Bambi to music by Andrei Golovin
and In the Jungle to music by Alexander Lokshin (13 and 14 March). The festival marathon will
continue with performances by lead soloists from the world’s best ballet
companies in Mariinsky Theatre productions. This year’s guest stars
include Isaac Hernandez representing the Dutch National
Ballet, Sae Eun Park from the Opera de Paris and Ruslan Skvortsov from the Bolshoi Theatre. One of
the Mariinsky ballet festival’s traditions is to host
galas for the company’s principal dancers. The artistic evening
on 19 March will focus on Viktoria Tereshkina. A Mariinsky Theatre prima ballerina
and recipient of numerous awards and prizes, she has been appearing
in repertoire productions for more than ten years now and practically every
Mariinsky Ballet premiere involves her. Adored by the public and critics
alike, Viktoria Tereshkina will be performing the roles of
Mekhmene-Bahnu in Act I from The Legend of Love, Zobeide
in Scheherazadeand the lead
in “Paquita” Grand Pas.Also in line with
tradition, one of the festival evenings will see the stage transformed
into a space for new dance ideas. On 21 March at the Creative Workshop new ballets
will be presented by the young choreographers Vladimir Varnava, Ilya
Zhivoi, Xenia Zvereva, Maxim Petrov, Maxim Sevagin and Yuri
Smekalov. These young choreographers are being stimulated by a plan
conceived by the theatre’s management in line with which the best
pieces enter the theatre’s repertoire. Having been performed
at previous workshops, Anton Pimonov’s Choreographic Game
3x3 and Yuri Smekalov’s Camera obscura are now
in the repertoire, while Vladimir Varnava’s miniature Keep
Calm from last year’s festival will be performed as part of
the programme for the final gala concert this year. The Gala
Concert on 22 March will feature Mariinsky Theatre soloists Ulyana
Lopatkina, Yekaterina Kondaurova, Oxana
Skorik, Alina Somova, Zlata
Yalinich, Timur Askerov, Kimin
Kim, Xander Parish and Vladimir Shklyarov as well as Opera de Paris soloists Ludmila Pagliero, Joshua Offalt, Audric Bezard, Marie-Agnes
Gillot, Hugo Marchand, Leonore Baulac and Jeremy-Loup Quer.